Reaching Out

This image was taken on the Big Island aka Hawaii. I wanted to visit the summit of Mauna Kea but the park rangers closed the road to the top because the wind gusts were 90 mph. Fortuitously, I u-turned and drove down the road to check out a photo opportunity I spied earlier on the way up. After parking the car, I did some backcountry hiking and came upon this marvelous scene! I was searching for a good composition with a piece of dead wood or a dead tree because anything taller than 4 ft was not alive. I wanted to emphasize the harshness of survival on a volcano. This image took the cake!

The wind velocity was very high and I wanted to show the brush in the foreground moving. Also, the light touching the top of the craters in the background was very cool. If you look closely there something like 11 craters in the background. Then finally the large peak at the back of the image is Mauna Loa, the other large volcano on Hawaii. You can see snow on the summit of Manau Loa if you zoom in.